“Oh no, not for me. I read that those things have all kinds of horrible side effects, like sleepwalking and suicide.”

  “You know they have to list every possible worst-case scenario. I swear, it will only help you get some sleep…which you really need.” Mel walked around the desk and stuck the baggie into Ivy’s purse. “Consider it a last resort then, but at least you’ll have the option.”

  By the time she got home that night, it was nearly midnight, but she had finished the last-minute assignment and wouldn’t have to go back into the office until Monday morning. A quick, hot shower was all she needed to relax and crawl into bed. Before sleep came however, Mel’s “wild and crazy” comment echoed in her mind.

  So what if she preferred to keep her life uncluttered and her relationships non-confrontational? Since she never considered these qualities to be harmful, it didn’t matter to her whether her behavior was a result of genetics, growing up as a transient army brat or simply a lack of curiosity. She had no desire to do “something totally wild and crazy”. Though she had no experience to draw on, she was certain it would be messy and not worth the clean-up required afterward. It was much more sensible to keep her wild and crazy adventures confined to her fantasies.

  When her brain continued to work overtime, she remembered the sleeping pills in her purse. She had definitely entered last resort territory.

  * * * * *

  It seemed as though she had barely fallen asleep when the thumping bass forced its way through the narcotic haze. She put the pillow over her head but the music found a way through that as well. A muscle in her leg twitched, then one of her shoulders. Despite the fog in her brain, her body was waking up. This was absolutely intolerable! Before she could rationalize her way out of confronting her thoughtless neighbors, she stumbled out of bed, pulled on a robe and headed upstairs.

  She was a little surprised that she couldn’t hear the music blaring as soon as she was on the upper floor but the closer she got to her destiny, the more distinctly she felt the now-familiar vibration from the bass. The mixed sounds of nature and instruments made her think of New Age recordings but this music was the opposite of relaxing.

  She raised her hand to knock and was halted by a quivering sensation that passed down her arm, through her abdomen and contracted her vagina. It was the same peculiar, seductive feeling that had taken over her body the night before. She pressed her palm against her crotch to stop the rising pulse but that only made it worse. The sexual urge was increasing and somehow the push-pull sensation within her matched a beat in the music.

  Before giving in to the unthinkable, she gritted her teeth and pounded on the door. By the time the latch was being undone, the effort to keep from masturbating had her hands trembling and perspiration covered her upper lip. The instant the door opened a crack, she shoved hard against it, forcing the man behind it back a step. She marched past him, her gaze darting madly around the living room searching for the source of the music. “You’ve got to shut it off!” she demanded. “Where is it?”

  As the man closed the door, he mumbled something incoherent, making her look directly at him. He was wearing a pair of low-hanging plaid boxers…with an impressive erection sticking out of the opening. Ivy’s mouth opened at the sight of it, then closed abruptly as she saw the whole picture—the tight abdomen, nicely muscled chest and shoulders, the gorgeous face…and the glasses.

  Either she was dreaming or her fantasy had just come to life.

  He came toward her, leading with his cock. Her gaze jerked upward and her attention was caught by a small silver disc in the center of his forehead. Two more were attached at his temples. Two more were on his chest. She had a question but then he spoke and her thought disintegrated.

  “You…shouldn’t…be here. The music—” He scanned her from head to toe, seemingly oblivious to his own exposure. “You’re…flushed.” He swiped the back of his hand over his own upper lip and blinked at the dampness. “Perspiring.”

  Clumsily he grasped her wrist and she could not stop the reactive tremble.

  “Pulse rate…elevated.” His voice was strained as he worked to speak. “Are you…aroused?”

  She could not find enough breath to respond with words. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around his cock and squeezed.

  A drop of pre-cum escaped and it was his turn to lose the ability to speak.

  He was clearly struggling to resist but she had no intention of allowing that. As in her elevator fantasy, she dropped to her knees before him. He leaned away but she quickly took the entire length of his penis into her mouth and sucked hard while her fingers captured his balls to hold him in place. She felt strong hands on her shoulders, pushing her forcefully enough to break the suction with a pop. When her mouth tried to recapture him, he forced her onto her back on the carpeted floor and held her shoulders down while straddling her hips.

  When he managed to speak, his voice was harsh, gritty. “You don’t…want this. My fault.”

  She bucked beneath him, unable to understand what his words meant. The wriggling movement opened her robe and twisted her nightshirt up so that his swollen shaft lay heavily against her bare belly. A low, animalistic growl escaped her throat. “What I want…is for you to fuck me. Now.” She bucked again, inching upward enough that his erection was pressed against her clit. Another wriggle and she had him. Only the tip at first, as he made one last effort to restrain himself, then with a powerful thrust, he was deep inside.

  They both moaned with the relief the connection brought. But it was short-lived as their instincts took over and their bodies pumped violently against each other, seeking to amp up the incredible pleasure. He gave more than she’d ever known and she claimed every inch as her own. The burst of climax came much too quickly, her hunger barely appeased.

  “More,” she demanded and forced him to roll so that she was straddling him. Mindlessly she stripped off her robe and nightshirt then brought his hands up to her aching breasts. Obediently he kneaded her flesh, squeezed and pinched her nipples. She leaned forward and he immediately took one puckered peak then the other into his mouth. For a moment, his sucking drew away some of her desperation but then her need skyrocketed again.

  She rode him with frantic abandon, forcing his cock to repeatedly press her elusive G-spot, yet the finale she sought remained out of reach. She pushed one of his hands downward and he got the unspoken order. Pressing his thumb against her clit, he stroked her until he found the building rhythm of her movements.

  Though his efforts were rewarded with a moan of approval, she was not yet finished with him. Up and down she rode, shifting her hips from side to side, forward and backward, with no thought beyond the intense physical pleasure she was experiencing. Finally her vaginal muscles spasmed around his straining penis, forcing them both to an explosive, kaleidoscopic orgasm.

  Completely sated, Ivy went limp on top of the body beneath her. For several seconds sporadic quivers continued to keep her in a state of euphoria. Only in a dreamy way did she sense the arms tightly embracing her. She felt fingers sliding gently up and down her back and had a fleeting thought about how lovely that was.

  This was absolutely the best fantasy ever, she thought, and gave in to the velvety darkness.

  Chapter Three

  Awareness came slowly to Ivy as a part of her mind wanted to stay in the delicious dream. She felt warm and sexy and pleased with herself, none of which was part of her waking life. Daylight filtering through her eyelids confirmed that it was past time to shake off the mist and get moving. She started to stretch and panicked when she realized there was something warm and solid spooned behind her. Her eyelids raised a tiny bit and she gasped at the sight of a manly forearm across her naked breasts and a muscular leg bent over her hips.

  Fuzzy memories of the man attached to those extremities slammed into her brain along with a shocking admission. It hadn’t been a dream. I had sex with a stranger. No, not sex. She’d had unbelievable, mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime— No single word came to her to accurately describe it. She just knew it had happened and, the fact that she was in the man’s bed rather than her own, confirmed that somehow she had been more than willing. The problem was she couldn’t remember how this had happened. Couldn’t remember how she’d ended up there, in his bed. Or maybe she simply didn’t want to. Whichever it was, her first priority was to get away. She could figure it all out when she was back in the safety of her own apartment.

  However, the instant she tried to slip out from under him, his arm and leg tensed, becoming mild restraints.

  “Stay,” he murmured and tucked her body more securely into the curve of his with his hand cupping her breast. “Mmmm. Very nice.”

  Though he seemed to still be more asleep than awake, she felt his erection nestling in the cleft of her ass. She should have been horrified, yet the intimacy felt so good that she had to stop herself from rubbing her bottom against him. It had been over a year since she’d slept with a man and the best she could say about that experience was that it had been okay. Later, when she was alone, she would have to give that some thought as well but for now, she needed to escape before having to face the music. The irony of that expression leaping into her head made her giggle aloud.

  “That was nice too. Want to share?”

  Her body tensed. “You’re awake?”

  “Sort of. Are you…calm?”

  What an odd question. “Uh, yes. I think.” She tried to squirm away but he tightened his hold.

  “Stay,” he repeated quietly. “We need to talk.”

  “And I really need to go.” Only when she added “to the bathroom” did he reluctantly release her. She started to rise then realized she was nude. Her robe was nowhere in sight. Although she hadn’t looked at him, she knew he was watching her. “Would you mind turning away?” She felt him shift then hurried into the bathroom. From behind the closed door, she called, “I’m sorry to bother you but could you find my robe?”

  When she finally emerged, shielded from neck to ankles by pink terry cloth, she couldn’t hide the fact that she remembered exactly what she had done. She saw him standing there, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, holding two mugs of steaming coffee.

  “I have cream and sugar if you need it.”

  Black coffee was definitely one of the things she needed but going into hiding for the rest of her life was higher on her list. There didn’t seem to be anything appropriate to say. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled and hurried out of the bedroom with her head bowed.

  He managed to cut her off before she reached his front door. “Please. Just give me a few minutes. I swear I can explain everything.”

  The mere idea that he thought there was an explanation for her behavior was enough to delay her. “I guess I could use some coffee.”

  He set the mugs on a small dinette table and waited for her to sit down before he did. “First things first.” He held his hand out to her. “Good morning. We, uh didn’t get a chance to introduce ourselves. I’m Doctor Banning, er, sorry, habit there. I’m Spencer Banning. Spence.”

  The formality seemed silly but it was a reasonable icebreaker under the circumstances. On the other hand, his awkwardness put her a little at ease. She shook his hand. “Ivy Whitehall, no title. I live in the apartment right below yours.”

  He nodded. “Apparently the vents connect. I really am sorry about waking you up.”

  She took a slow, deep breath. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. Not for waking you up. If I couldn’t sleep, why should you? But what happened, what I did, well, if I’m not mistaken, I, uh, behaved…really inappropriately.”

  “Not at all.”

  She was as stunned by his comment as his calm tone. “How can you say that? I practically raped you! In fact, I’m sure I did.”

  He choked on a swallow of coffee and had to take a moment to reply. “You can’t take the blame. If you think back, I was already, uh, ready when you came to my door.

  She shrugged. “Men wake up like that. It’s human nature. I just took advantage of that.”

  That made him smile. “Actually, you’re not far off from the explanation. My nature, and yours, were at the root of what happened between us. But it was the music that woke up one of our primal instincts.”

  Her first thought was to dismiss such a ridiculous excuse then she remembered what had happened the night before when the music awakened her. She was all alone then. No hot man with a hard cock enticing her to suck on it. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  He took a long sip and set his mug down. His entire demeanor changed from awkward and uncertain to serious and confident. “I’m a professor of anthropology. The focus of my research is on the effects of primitive, tribal music on the libido of the civilized human.”

  “Is that why you were in New Zealand?” Ivy set down her own mug and leaned forward.

  “Yes,” he said, clearly pleased with her attention. “I’ve spent the last three years traveling the world, doing research in places like New Zealand, Ethiopia and Peru. My theory was that the specific instrumentation used was as important as the beat or any performance rituals. And I was right. The tribal people I encountered still use the same elements of nature as their ancestors did. Some of the sounds and tones simply don’t reproduce precisely with today’s technology.”

  Ivy had thought he was good-looking when he was too worn out to know what day it was but as he spoke of his work he became the most handsome man she had ever seen. She wanted to keep him talking. “So, what did you do?”

  “I recorded everything I heard—music that relaxes and induces sleep, melodies that speed up the healing process, stir rage to prepare for battle. And the kind that heightens sexual desire to enhance fertility and the mating process. One of the aspects I found exceptionally interesting was that there were subtle variations in that music depending on whether the sex act was part of a ritual to encourage a good harvest, enhance human reproduction or simple physical pleasure.”

  Ivy was both intrigued with his studies and just a little creeped out by the conclusion she was drawing. “And the music I heard last night?”

  He had the decency to look sheepish. “The latter.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’ve been playing recordings of music that sent my libido into overdrive as…part of your academic research?”

  “Correct,” he said, looking pleased that she understood. He should have been paying more attention to her tone of voice.

  “Soooo, that makes me your unsuspecting guinea pig. In a way, you raped me.”

  “Oh god, no! I mean, I see how you might think that, but I swear I didn’t know anyone could hear it except me. The only reason I wasn’t using ear plugs was that I found they altered the sounds sufficiently enough to affect the results.” He covered her hand with his. “I really did try to stop. You remember that don’t you?”

  She grimaced and unsuccessfully tried to reclaim her hand. “Unfortunately, I do. Maybe in the future you could confine your experiments to the daytime when I’m at work.”

  “I tried that but the results were minimized by my conscious mind. Only when I set the recording to play while I was in a deep sleep did I finally begin to see the relevant brain patterns.”

  She wanted to stay annoyed but he was actually making a bit of sense—in an absentminded professor sort of way—and he looked and sounded completely sincere. His eyes held just the right amount of regret. And the way his thumb was stroking the back of her hand felt very reassuring. She felt the now familiar tugging deep inside her womb and made herself think of something else. “Um, you mentioned healing. Is that really possible?”

  “Absolutely. You’re probably familiar with the Bramston quote, ‘Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast’. And how reducing stress can reduce certain types of illness. But I have evidence of wounds healing faster when the patient regularly listens to certain sounds. I’ll probably end up writing a follow-up book just on that aspect.”

  “You’ve written a book?” she asked with genuine interest.

  He lowered his eyes. “Still writing. It’s a work in progress. I’ve hit a stumbling block.”

  Before he veered off onto a different topic, she pulled him back to the first subject she wanted to know more about. “What did you mean by brain patterns?”

  His eyes twinkled again and he quickly stood up, still holding her hand. “Come. Let me show you how it works.”

  She dug her heels in at the doorway of his bedroom. “Hold on now. I’m not agreeing to—” Her objection was cut off by what she saw. Last night it was too dark to see and this morning she was too embarrassed to notice anything beyond herself. Nearly half the room was taken up with various pieces of technology—multiple laptops, monitors, printers, something that looked like a lie detector from an old police drama and stacks of files and papers all over the floor. It definitely looked like he was doing some sort of research here. Or he was the biggest geek on the planet. While his attention was focused on preparing his demonstration, she was able to focus on him.

  His physical appearance had attracted her instantly. Now, having the luxury of time to really check him out, she decided he was even yummier than she’d thought. From his thick, uncombed hair all the way down his well-toned body to his bare feet, the whole package tempted her to touch. Her intimate knowledge of his oh-so-tempting package sent a tickle right to her clit and she caught her breath.

  He turned at the subtle sound. “Come closer. Nothing’s going to happen to you. I promise. I just want to show you the process.”

  A good deal of what he said went over her head but she gathered that he’d been experimenting on himself the last few nights. The silver buttons she had seen on his face and chest were wireless electrodes that transmitted his reactions to the music on physical and subliminal levels over to various recording devices. He had printouts showing the effects of the different recordings and was very enthusiastic about how well each phase of their encounter had been immortalized. Even on paper it appeared to have been a very wild ride for him.

 

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